Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

Communicating Science to the Public

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Dr. Jennifer Leavey, Integrated Sciences Curriculum Coordinator, College of Sciences, GA Tech

 

In preparation for the Atlanta Science Festival to be held March 22-29, 2014 in Centennial Olympic Park, students in this course will develop communication skills and scientific expertise in the context of designing, creating, implementing, and assessing informal science education exhibits or demonstrations. The students will bring their demonstrations to Westside K-12 schools to  complement classroom science instruction and assess the effectiveness of each project in meeting learning objectives.

 

If you are an Honors Program student interested in taking the course (BIOL2803), find registration information here.

Project ENGAGE Mentor Match Ceremony & Luncheon

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At a luncheon on Monday June 17th, 2013 in Georgia Tech’s U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Engineering building, 12 students from B.E.S.T. Academy and Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy (CSKYWLA) were matched up with their mentors and respective laboratories. After spending the first two weeks of the program in the classroom learning proper laboratory protocol and an intensive science curriculum, the students participated in a speed dating process geared at matching students to mentors. Today, they were given their white laboratory coats during a candle-lighting and reveal ceremony.

MentorMatchCeremonyALL

Project ENGAGE (Engaging New Generations at Georgia Tech through Engineering) is a new internship program that pays local high school students to actively participate in current scientific research under the guidance of Master’s and PhD students and faculty members. The students were chosen after a selection process that included creating a resume, providing reference letters, and complete an in-person interview. The internship will continue throughout the 2013-2014 school year and involves two faculty members, one from each academy. The goal of the program is two-fold: to raise high-school student awareness of the biotechnology world through hands-on research projects and to improve the schools’ current science education program through the teacher training initiative.

 

See more about the CSKYWLA ENGAGE scholars here.

InGirls Visit to Georgia Tech

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On Friday February 22, 2013 46 female eighth-grade students interested in math and science from Joseph Emerson Brown and John F. Kennedy middle schools, from West End and Vine City respectively in the Westside, visited Georgia Tech to get a taste of college life. The event took place as a partnership between Westside Communities Alliance, a joint venture with Georgia Tech’s IAC and College of Architecture led by Dr. Sheri Davis-Faulkner and Mackenzie Madden in the Office of the Dean, and InGirls, an organization focused on increasing college acceptance among underserved female students.

WCA Staff Sheri Davis-Faulkner with InGirls from Brown Middle School.

Undergraduate students Danielle Sharpe and Cecili Reid and PhD candidate Nettrice Gaskins welcomed them to campus in the morning. We sent them off in small groups for various activities. Some attended classes in the School of Economics and School of Literature, Media, and Culture. Others attended robotics, public participation, and augmented reality demonstrations in the GVU (Graphics, Visualization, and Usability) Center, while others visited the EarSketch recording studio in the School of Music. We had lunch in the Presidential Suite of the Bill Moore Student Success Center overlooking the football stadium while Chris Briggs, from the Office of Admissions discussed why Georgia Tech is such a wonderful school and how to prepare for admittance.

Student volunteers from IAC Ambassadors, IAC Student Advisory Board, Delta Sigma Theta, FirstGen, JumpStart, OMED, and the courses NearPeer and Science, Technology & Race then took them on informal tours of campus and provided the girls an opportunity to ask questions in a smaller setting. Some highlights of their tours were Tech Rec and the Campus Recreation Center. Several of the volunteers also gave the girls their contact information to continue serving as a college liaison. The girls left excited about the prospect of attending Georgia Tech, something that may have seemed unattainable before this visit, short term goal of the program. We look forward to an ongoing relationship with the InGirls program to ultimately increase acceptance and admittance from our neighboring communities.

PhD Student Nettrice Gaskins demonstrates Augmented Reality.